


Errors

by JustJasper



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garcia has computer errors to fix, and there is little more annoying than errors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Errors

**Author's Note:**

> Complete creative licence taken for how the kind of advanced coding Garcia does works.

Garcia growled low in her throat and sent up a thanks to gods she’s almost entirely sure don’t exist that this didn’t happen on a busy case day. It was Friday, a thankfully slow one; JJ was the only main team member in, and she was busy doing paperwork. They’d already had lunch together; a welcome break from their workloads, and Penelope had returned to her batcave, and to  _errors_.  
  
They weren’t damaging errors; there was no risk to her work, but they were enough for her to be completely and utterly distracted trying to find and fix them.  
  
She popped a hard candy from her treat bowl into her mouth and set to work, typing with purpose. She found the source of one error in under a minute, and brought up the code. She scanned it, trying to pinpoint the problem, until she picked out three stray characters. She sighed, frustrated because she had no idea how the extra Y, E and L had got there. She knew she’s have to run a diagnostic to see what was spawning the stray characters, so in another window she typed down details of the error to remind her, and to avoid replicating it when she rewrote her code.  
  
The second error she got to the root of within a couple of minutes, finding a key line of code utterly tangled. She made a frustrated sound and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, correcting the stray W, R and A and recording the error with the first in her logs for future reference.  
  
The third error was a lot trickier to flush out. It was causing the same data-entry sequence to recycle old data, and was leaving her with large files of worthless information. She blitzed those and went for the jugular of the problem, having to tweak several surrounding pieces of code before she could take out the culprits; O, U, M. All the errors originating from stray alphabetical characters made Garcia suspect the errors all had the same source origin, which made her curse in frustration. Until she found that, she was likely to have recurring errors until it was dealt with.  
  
Under the table she slipped off her shoes – gorgeous purple plaid strappy sandal-heels, getting comfortable. She curled her toes experimentally as she went after the next error, having watched it change the wallpaper of one of her screens to a random image of a frog. It was actually the least annoying of the errors, and as she fixed it (R, M) she noted down the sequencing, wondering if she could write code that would change the desktop image at dramaticaly programmed intervals. Like a sad kitten picture when delivering bad news. That could be fun, if ultimately unproductive.  
  
She squared up to the last error, pushing another candy between her lips and staring intently at the screen.  
  
“C’mon you little devil,” she murmured, “mama’s magic fingers are going to snuff you out.”  
  
The coding surrounding the error was a complete mess, and it took her almost five minutes to rework it and she still found some erroneous letters; I, L, Y. She typed in the error log, and realised the last ones made the acronym for ‘I Love You’. She gave a half-hearted chuckle that code that had only caused her to waste time fixing it wanted to tell her it loved her.  
  
It didn’t occur to her to put the letters together until she was about to close the error logs. She cocked her head and blinked a few times, before she resorted to finding a scrap of paper and a pen with a fuzzy unicorn on it.  
  
 _YELWRAOUMRMILY_  
  
Reid would be able to look at the jumble of letters and figure out all possible anagrams in a matter of seconds, and for the first time she regretted the other team members not being in. But she set to work none the less, scribbling and tapping her foot as she thought.  
  
 _Lawyer oil rummy. A merrily owl yum. Alley I mum worry. Early rim low yum. Will you marry me._  
  
Garcia almost choked on the boiled candy in her mouth. She double and triple checked, and all the letters fit. It could not be a coincidence. Her heart beat furiously and she shook her hands to regain control of them, accidentally flinging her unicorn-pen behind her desk as she did so. She didn’t care though. She snatched up the slip of paper and hurried out of her office, leaving her shoes behind.  
  
She found him on her way to where he worked, outside of JJ’s office in polite conversation with the blonde. Garcia’s brain couldn’t handle waiting and politely injecting herself, and she grabbed Kevin by the tie and pulled him close, hands going to each side of his face so she could angle him as she peppered kisses all over his soft features.  
  
“Kevin! You! God! My code!” she sounded, and JJ raised an eyebrow. A grin was spreading across Kevin’s face, and he put his hands gently on Penelope’s waist. “That you’d ever dare-” her eyes were brimming with tears, and her lower lip wobbled as she pulled back to look the other geek in the face.  
  
“And?” Kevin prompted.  
  
“Yes!” Penelope said, her voice crackling a little. “Yes, Kevin.”  
  
His grin got impossibly wider, and finally Garcia handed the slip of paper to a curious JJ. As the other woman read it and understanding dawned, Kevin produced a small pink box from his messenger bag. JJ was beaming along with them as Kevin handed it to the other tech, and she opened it to reveal an engagement ring that was a perfect collision of simple, quirky and Garcia; instead of a tradition one white gem set in gold, it was four small gems in green, blue purple and pink set into a band of platinum, with a swirling, detailed engraving like swirling smoke around the inset gems.  
  
“Oh, Kevin,” Penelope cooed. “You made it real.” She looked to JJ, a tear rolling down her cheek. “It’s the ring I designed, my dream ring, the one I’ve always wanted,” she explained. “Kevin.” He just smiled and laughed and kissed his new fiancé.  
  
“I never thought you’d be so happy to get a computer error,” he said.  
  


_“There is no such thing as a weird human being, It's just that some people require more understanding than others.” – Tom Robbins_


End file.
